You don’t have to be a parent to realize that buying new children’s clothing is kind of a ripoff. I can wear the same pair of jeans until they’re full of holes, but kids grow out of stuff expensively fast. thredup.com solves that problem by offering an online platform for the sale of second-hand children’s clothing and today the company announced it has raised $14.5 million in Series C financing.
The new round was led by Highland Capital and joined by previous investors Trinity Ventures and Redpoint Ventures. The company was founded by HBS grads in Boston but moved to San Francisco in 2010. The money will go to scaling up the platform and to expanding to new verticals. Here’s the release:
thredUP Raises $14.5M Series C to Revolutionize Resale
Online resale platform raises fresh capital to scale supply, operations and distribution
thredUP.com, the market leading online children’s clothing platform, today announced a $14.5 million Series C financing led byHighland Capital Partners with participation from existing investors, Trinity Ventures and Redpoint Ventures. This investment brings thredUP’s total committed capital to more than $23 million. Dan Nova at Highland will join thredUP’s Board of Directors in conjunction with the financing.
The additional capital will help accelerate thredUP’s efforts to scale its rapidly growing platform – bringing the economic and environmental benefits of ‘resale’ to mainstream consumers everywhere.
“thredUP is disrupting the $30 billion resale industry by moving something families have been doing offline for generations, online,” said Dan Nova, General Partner with Highland Capital. “thredUP is the market leader building a terrific team to support a great product. We are absolutely thrilled to partner with them.”
thredUP will use the funding to open several new distribution and processing centers nationwide to support increasingly high volumes of inventory. With clothing supply coming from individual families, partners and thredUP’s sourcing team, the company anticipates putting more than 25,000 new items online each day by this time next year.
“We’re on a path to be the world’s largest online retailer of second-hand children’s clothing, and our vision is to serve customers throughout the broader second-hand apparel industry,” said James Reinhart, CEO and co-founder ofthredUP. “We are excited to have the support of our investors as we start to dramatically scale our business and change the face of resale in the next few years.”
thredUP is already redefining the second-hand space online by centralizing inventory. The company’s ability to control inventory, and thus the customer experience, is driving customer loyalty. Unlike ever before, consumers can refresh children’s wardrobes without leaving the house, negotiating with buyers or sellers, or taking any risks on clothing quality.
On thredUP, families can send in their outgrown children’s clothing in pre-paid “clean out” bags, and earn roughly 30% of each acceptable item’s resale value. The magic at thredUP is behind the scenes, where proprietary technology is used to automate the clothing evaluation, itemization and photography process. Only flaw-free, like-new clothing makes it through vetting and is posted on the thredUP website for other shoppers to buy.
thredUP had raised this Series C round of financing on the heels of rapid growth and a successful back-to-school season. The company’s distribution and processing center, led by former Netflix DVD executive, John Voris, has grown to more than 70 people and is already selling and receiving thousands of items each day.
In addition to scaling supply, operations and distribution, this round of funding will also support thredUP’s customer acquisition goals and plans to expand to other resale verticals like teen, maternity and adults.
About thredUP:
thredUP.com is the brainchild of co-founders James Reinhart, Oliver Lubin and Chris Homer. The company is based in San Francisco, CA and is advised by current Netflix CEO Reed Hastings and former eBay COO, Brian Swette. thredUP is backed by world-class investors including Trinity Ventures, Redpoint Ventures and Highland Capital Partners. For more information, visit http://www.thredup.com.
